A number of commercially available programmable IMDs, for example, cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators, electrical signal monitors, hemodynamic monitors, nerve and muscle stimulators and infusion pumps, include electronic circuitry and a battery to energize the circuitry for the delivery of therapy and/or for taking physiological measurements for diagnostic purposes. It is common practice to monitor battery life within an IMD so that a patient in whom the IMD is implanted should not suffer the termination of therapy, and or diagnostic benefit, from that IMD when the IMD battery runs down. Several methods for deriving estimates of remaining battery life, which employ monitoring schemes that require periodic measurements of battery voltage and either, or both of, battery impedance and current drain, have been described in the art, for example, in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,671,552. Although the previously described methods can provide fairly accurate estimates of remaining battery life, there is still a need for methods that employ simplified monitoring schemes in which fewer measurements are taken.